Many golfers frequent driving ranges where they can hit a large number of balls in a short period of time. Typically, a golfer will pay for a large bucket or a small bucket of golf balls and take them to a teeing area where the balls can be hit down a driving range. In this manner, the golfer improves his or her driving skills and enjoys the exercise associated with hitting a large number of balls in a relatively short period of time.
Most pro shops are attended by an individual who collects payment for the large bucket or small bucket and hands the large or small bucket to the customer. That individual, or someone else, is usually responsible as well for keeping the buckets filled to their proper level. Obviously, such vending procedure is labor-intensive and cuts deeply into whatever profits may be earned by the proprietor in supplying the service. It is also well known among shop owners that the individual responsible for handling the vending often befriends various customers and sells them large buckets for the price of a small bucket, or gives them a free bucket from time to time, and so on.
Thus, at least one inventor has heretofore made an effort to develop a golf ball vending machine that substantially takes the human element out of the vending process. The device is a combination ball cleaner and vending machine and is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,588,108. The balls are washed in a ball washing device and carried while still wet to the vending part of the machine by an escalator-like conveyance means. The machine vends a bucket full of balls in response to a coin or token-activated signal. Apparently, the machine lacks the capacity of vending a small bucket of balls; perhaps more importantly, the machine retails for about $15,000.00 and is of complex construction.
Accordingly, there is a need for a golf ball vending machine of elegant construction that is capable of vending either half a bucket of balls or a full bucket at the election of a consumer, but the prior art neither teaches nor suggests how such an apparatus could be provided.